Business Maverick

Business Maverick

Musk Says Gates ‘Has No Clue’ About Powering Electric Trucks

Elon Musk and Bill Gates Source: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

Elon Musk said that Bill Gates “has no clue” about electric trucks, responding to a Twitter follower about a week before the much anticipated “Battery Day.”

He has no clue

Musk was responding to a question about Gates’ “declarations” on electric trucks. In an August blog post, the Microsoft Inc. co-founder laid out his thoughts on the future of mobility, suggesting the world should use clean electricity to run as many vehicles as possible, though he said it “will probably never be a practical solution” for heavy, long-haul vehicles, cargo ships and passenger jets.

Tesla has said its Semi truck model, which was first unveiled in 2017, is expecting first deliveries beginning 2021. Tesla has been investing heavily in the model that boasts 500 miles of range.

Gates believes that future long-haul travels will be more likely powered by alternative fuels such as biofuels and electrofuels, because batteries are big and heavy for long distances. He didn’t refer to electric trucks specifically.

He concurred that “EVs excel at short-haul travel,” touting the sector has made lots of progress with increased competition and greater affordability. In the same post, he applauded several companies that would soon debut all-electric pickup trucks for consumers, such as “legacy companies like GM and Ford and new carmakers like Rivian and Bollinger,” just stopping short of naming Tesla, which is the maker of pickup EV Cybertruck.

Gates is the world’s second-richest person, while Musk is fourth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The electric-vehicle maker’s fortune has surged after Tesla shares more than quadrupled this year.

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • Fox Bravo.. says:

    Gates is wrong about them not being electric, but I think he meant to suggest that they would not be battery operated. With clean abundant safe new NUCLEAR power reactors (molten salt reactors) there will be enough inexpensive power to produce Hydrogen using the high temperature electro-chemical water splitting
    using an SO2 depolarised electrolyser. Boats plane and trucks will need to be H2 based not battery. We too could harvest our own carbon fuels from water and CO2 in the air (using the high molten salt temperatures as well desalinate enough water. Please bring me a Nuclear future. https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.